Morning coffee round up

For your reading pleasure. I hope you’ll grab a beverage, sit down and spend a little time with me and the other readers. Got something to share that you think others may enjoy? Please feel free to share in the comments!

An unnamed woman has died at Sunshine Hospital during a caesarean. This is the most common way for Australian women to die when birthing. Utter tragedy. I see her family and she are not being named, as is proper for their confidentiality at such a time. I wish the same could have been extended to the only woman recorded as dying after a homebirth in Victoria. As ever, the double standard means homebirthing families are exposed and vilified and hospital birthing families have their loss covered up and minimised. While it is said to be with the coroner, a surprising fact given how few maternal deaths end up in coronial court from hospitals (100% from homebirths even when those deaths are 15 years apart and not associated with complications), if it progresses to an inquiry, the big questions won’t be asked because they never are. The surgeons will say birth is very dangerous, the coroner will nod, agree and praise them for the hard job they do and another woman’s death will slide under the carpet.

Deepest condolences to this family. I hope the babe and family are being held in love and treated with respect.

The pink’n’blue divide is so remarkably powerful and prevalent today. It was not, she says mindful of her age, like this in my youth! We girls even got to play with normal lego which had not morphed into something resembling unicorn poo back then in the late Cretaceous.

These days, it seems the front lines in the war on gender bias are manned by little girls. Their weapon of choice? Words.

The latest example of this phenomenon comes from a 6-year-old known as R____ who took a board game to task. As R.’s mother, Irish journalist Jennifer O’Connell, says on her blog, her daughter complained to Hasbro UK about the underrepresentation of women in the game “Guess Who?”. Out of 24 characters in the basic edition, the little girl was disappointed that only five are female.

Be thin. Not so thin that you actually might look like you have an eating problem, in which case you will be told to “eat a cheeseburger” or called “bag of bones,” but thin. You should be very slender everywhere except for the essential parts of you which have pleasing, soft curves. Your arms shouldn’t show even the slightest fat deposits, for example, but your bust should be full and butt be high and round. If you don’t have these attributes naturally, you can get implants, but they had better look completely natural — if not, you’re going to be a “fake bitch” with “big fake tits.” And no matter how pronounced these curves are, you cannot have even a single pock of cellulite — that shit is gross.

People caring for themselves has value? Who knew?! Great to see this in the newspaper!

Power to the people

Psychotherapist and meditation teacher, Paul Bedson agrees it is amazing, but is not altogether surprised. In the 20 years he has worked in integrative medicine, he has seen a dramatic shift in attitude towards the approach. An integrative approach, he explains, that takes into account mainstream medicine, complimentary therapies and lifestyle ‘medicine’ such as exercise, nutrition and ensuring emotional support.

“An integrative approach is using the best of what’s available,” he says.